Shoppers want offline shopping in real shops to optimally complement their online shopping activities. More and more online shopping happens on mobile devices such as Smartphones and tablets. Shoppers also increasingly use their Smart phones to assist them during shopping in real stores, for instance, by making photos to keep track of the products they like, to share the products with friends via social networks or to search for additional product information. It is also known that many people are going to shops to browse and explore different products, after which they finally decide on the best option and then buy this product online. This area of “multi-channel retailing” is gaining a lot of attention in the current retail business and retail organizations are looking for new ways to create synergy between the online and offline retail channels, for instance, by bringing the possibilities of online shopping to their stores or by finding new ways to somehow remain connected with shoppers who have visited the store.
More and more products will be RFID tagged in the future in order to support logistic processes for manufacturers and retailers, and shoppers will have Smartphones that may be equipped with NFC chips which are able to read those RFID tags. However, those generic product ID tags are not associated with any retailer- or shop-specific information, so these tags alone do not directly help a retailer in creating a multi-channel approach or in establishing a relation with a shopper that shows clear interest in a particular product. Next to this, there is also uncertainty about how widespread mobile phones with NFC chips will become. On the other hand, the majority of mobile phones nowadays are equipped with a camera, even the more basic ones.
Existing camera based solutions rely on identification through a QR code. A disadvantage of QR codes is that the user has to accurately aim and hold the camera at the code. Correct recognition of the QR code varies quite widely amongst smart phones.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,248,467 discloses a system for using light sources emitting coded light to transmit information to a smart phone, which captures the light. The information comprises an identification code that is used to identify the position of the light source within a building. The system is primarily used for providing a visitor of a museum with position related information, such as information about objects of the exhibition.
It would be advantageous to apply the technique of transmitting information via coded light to the environment of a store, where the customer can receive information about different products by means of coded light transmission. However, in a store the number of products is large, they frequently change position, or are replaced by other products. There is no teaching in U.S. Pat. No. 8,248,467 about how to handle such an environment.